8 Babies, A Million Opinions

I'm sure everyone has heard about the ongoing saga of the woman who delivered octuplets on Monday. The fact that eight babies came out of one woman is mind-boggling enough, it's only happened one other time that we know of in the U.S. But the controversy that continued to swirl around this large delivery confuses me even more.

Only later did we learn that the mother of this recent litter was already a mother of six, making her the proud parent of, I think buttload is the technical term, of kids. 14 children.

Ho

Lee

Crap!

Beyond the seeming insanity of wanting more than a carload of offspring, it has to be said that it is this woman's right to have as many kids as she wants, and if her & her husband can afford them, more power to them. It is none of our business how many kids they have or wish to have, a fact that seems to escape the media and most of the public.

Many have criticized the mom's choice to add eight more kids to an already larger-than-average family. But I will submit to you that there's nothing wrong with having a large family if you are prepared to deal with the challenges inherent to large broods of young-uns. If fact, some extra-large families - like the famous Duggar family - have made a science of stripping away all the unnecessary and worthless junk we give our kids and are raising an (albeit huge) family of well-behaved and hard-working kids. It's all a matter of commitment, if you want enough kids to fill a school bus...and you are willing to make the sacrifices required, God bless you and your legion of progeny.

But further ridiculous is the criticism of this mother's decision to have all of her in-vitro fertilized embryos implanted in her womb and her decision to carry all of the fetuses to term. How shocking that many of those now standing in judgment of this woman would tell me that I have no right to an opinion as to whether they had an abortion. But when this woman makes a choice not to employ practices that she may have equated with abortion, suddenly she is insane, or at the very least reckless.

What happened to "my body, my choice"? This woman chose to have a number of her eggs fertilized in-vitro, chose to have all of the resulting embryos implanted in her uterus (the normal procedure is to implant only a few), and she chose to have all of her babies. If a woman's decision to have end a pregnancy is between her & her doctor...then why doesn't the same rule apply here? Does "Pro-Choice" now mean that the woman's choice is subject to the qualms of others? If so, everyone really needs to lay off he Pro-Life crowd for having qualms of their own.

I say we leave this woman and her kids alone, unless it's to volunteer to change diapers. Any takers?

Nolanbuck

Michael Steele, New RNC Chairman

Today, the Republican National Committee picked former Maryland lieutenant governor and current GOPAC chairman Micheal Steele as the new RNC chairman. Mr. Steele is a moderate conservative, a political visionary, a brilliant public speaker...oh, and by the way...he's an African American.

I have watched his career for a few years now, and this man is the breath of fresh air that the deflated Republican party needs right now. Here's a sample of his brilliance. Notice he never said "Republican"? The best part is, Steele wasn't even a member of the RNC when he was elected.

Fresh air, indeed.

Nolanbuck

Obama to Arabs: We Are Not Your Enemy

President Barrack H. Obama chose Al-Arabiya, an Arabic satellite TV network, for his first formal TV interview as President. I guess Fox News was busy that day. And he also announced that he had sent former senator George Mitchell (of the baseball steriods investigation fame) to the middle east as his personal envoy. Apparently, there was some concern that performance-enhancing drugs may be giving the terrorists an unfair advantage.

Ok, two quick things...

1. How many muslims do you think watched this, slapped their heads and said, "Now he tells me!"?

2. How come President Obama can trot out his muslim heritage to suit his purposes, but when anyone else wants to talk about it, that's racist?

But back to the interview:

I'm all for talking with the leaders of the Islamic world, and perhaps more importantly, reaching out to the people of the Middle east; but I am afraid it will do little good and only make us appear weak in their eyes. Then they will all treat us like the house of Saud does, they will extend us the hand of friendship while their other hand is doling out oil money to the Wahabbis.

We support Israel, as we should. The Arab world hates Israel with a passion few of us can even fathom. It doesn't matter what we do or say, as long as we support Israel, the Muslim "street" will hate us too (even if their goverments play nice because of the money or favors we'll give them). It's not about Arabs being subhuman or us being imperialist dogs...it's about a blood feud that goes back thousands of years that we picked a side in.

As for how I feel about the situation, I know many wonderful, kind and patriotic muslim Americans. But they aren't in the middle east anymore, where every woe is blamed on the great satan. I know generalizations aren't fair, but I have a hard time getting these images out of my mind...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWYOO1oNmDU

3000 or so of our brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, wives, and children dead in moments (many muslims among them, btw)...and they danced and passed out candy. Someone remind me...why is it we who are coming with hat in hand?

Nolanbuck

Goodbye Gitmo, hello havoc

With the stroke of his newly presidential pen on Thursday, Barrack H. Obama ordered the closing of the prison for illegal enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba...a move which was immediately hailed by the left and the left-leaning media as a triumph of American values. But larger and more serious questions loom than those of esoteric and lofty ideals of the safe, warm liberal; questions like what is the Obama administration plan for the detainees who will be homeless in a year, and do they even have a plan beyond the feel good move of closing the prison?

Beyond a couple dozen truly frightening human beings housed at Gitmo, the rest are illegal enemy combatants...not criminals, not POW's, but a seemingly nebulous category of limbo that no one can quite describe. But the designation of illegal enemy combatant is neither new or untested, but is both legal and applicable in a time of war. In fact, it has been used before.

In 1942, two groups of German saboteurs were secreted onto our coasts by U-boat for the express purpose of wrecking havoc on the war effort on US soil. Operation Pastorius was the code name for this brain-child of Hitler, and if not for an alert Coast Guardsman on Long Island, the nefarious plot may well have worked. But what happened after the Nazi's were captured in of more interest here.

After their capture, the German saboteurs were put on trial before a military tribunal (sound familiar?). Counsel for the defense tried early on in the trial to get the case moved to a civilian court, and petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a change of venue. In the Ex parte Quirin case, the lawyers for the saboteurs were dealt a blow, and the ground work was set to deal with illegal enemy combatants in US custody. SCOTUS said:

…the law of war draws a distinction between the armed forces and the peaceful populations of belligerent nations and also between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals.

(emphasis mine)

Six of the eight saboteurs were executed one month after their capture, the other two were sentenced to life in prison at hard labor, but their sentences were commuted in 1948 by president Truman and they were deported to Germany.

So over 60 years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States delineated the category of illegal enemy combatants, and a democratic President (FDR, one of Obama's purported inspirations) subjected these men to a military tribunal, denied them a writ of habeas corpus, and ultimately sent them to their death for their crimes. Would that the Democratic party of today had the stones for such decisive action.

The U.S. is at war. The men being held at Gitmo were captured out of uniform waging war against the US and it's interests. No amount of feel-good policy can change those facts, or solve the daunting problems that face our nation.

Nolanbuck

Roll with the changes

Due to the pressures of the bad economy, and also due to the fact that I am a consummate cheapskate, we have decided to move our blog to Blogger.com.

We have been on a bit of hiatus of late, dealing with some real life issues (which may become blog-fodder someday...) but I'm back and hopefully soon my lovely bride will be as well. In the meantime, I'll keep things humming by blogging about whatever is on my mind...which given my ADD, may be a bit of a buffet to say the least.

Anyway, the original url's will still work, but they will come here now instead of the old digs. I will be moving the archives from our former habitation to this new place very soon. We're proud to be a new part of the Blogger.com community, and we look forward to a bright future and a healthy exchange of ideas.

Nolanbuck